Today is Saturday, and Matthias and Ina have invited me along on several outings. First, we purchase wine at Lebenshilfe, which produces them organically. It is a work cooperative for people with special needs. The grapes are grown on hillsides not accessible by machine. Matthias has the responsibility of buying wine for several family members. To buy wine, of course, one must first taste it.
Next, lunch (including a healthy dose of water to recover my senses), and after that, a Fahrrad (bicycle) tour. It is a most gorgeous Autumn afternoon — “Old Woman Summer” is the expression here. 
We cruise the vineyards — there are many paths among them — and stop at a restored Roman ruin (a winery operating from 100 A.D. to 350 A.D.). Matthias tells me how the Romans brought peaches and figs and certain kinds of grapes and apples to the region.
In Forst, we drink new wine at a roadside stand. (The red one has a hint of cherry and goes down like sweet juice.) Oh happy day.
“It seems to me that the Palatinate is like the California of Germany,” I say to Matthias.
He sits up straighter. “Or it could be,” he says, “California is the Palatinate of the United States.”